Delivering Signal Molecules from Young Microglia to Aged Brain Tissue Enhances Removal of Amyloid
Microglia are a form of immune cell found in the central nervous system, responsible for a range of tasks including defense against pathogens and clearance of unwanted extracellular waste. Like all aspects of the immune system, their performance declines with age. Delivering young microglia to the aging brain has been proposed as a potential therapy by a number of research groups, and there has been some exploratory work in mice in recent years. Here researchers work in aged brain tissue sections rather than animal models, but show that introducing young microglia and the signals they produce enhances the removal of the am...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 22, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Initial Results Reported from a Phase 1 Safety Trial of a Tau Vaccine
Alzheimer's disease is both an amyloidosis and a tauopathy; its symptoms are produced by some combination of the presence of solid deposits of misfolded amyloid-β and tau protein, though there is much debate over which is more important and how they interact with one another and brain cells in order to produce pathology. Effective treatment will probably involve removing both amyloid-β and tau aggregates from brain tissue and cerebrospinal fluid. So far the best class of approach, and the one with the most funding behind it at the present, is immunotherapy, engineering the immune system to attack and remove the unwanted ...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 13, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
AL cardiac amyloidosis
(Source: Notes from Dr. RW)
Source: Notes from Dr. RW - December 13, 2016 Category: Internal Medicine Tags: cardiovascular Source Type: blogs
The Decomposition of Alzheimer's Disease
The biochemistry of Alzheimer's disease is complex and varied, still incompletely mapped at the detail level. At the edges it merges into grey areas shared with other forms of neurodegeneration - a large number of Alzheimer's patients are diagnosed with other forms of dementia or cognitive impairment. That Alzheimer's is one item in the official list of diseases, that the borders between various forms of neurodegeneration are drawn as they are, is a historical accident carried across more than a century of the taxonomy of disease, not a reflection of current opinions. The age-related dysfunction of the brain is driven by n...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 10, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
A Discussion of Natural Limits on Lifespan, for Some Definition of Natural
A recently published analysis of the nature of limits to human life span under our present rapidly changing circumstances is receiving a lot of press attention today. The press being the press, you might skip the popular science articles in favor of the paper. Since it is not open access, you'll have to obtain it from the usual unofficial sources. It is an interesting read, and serves as a reminder that the research community actually knows very little about the demographics of aging at very advanced age. The data is so sparse past age 110 that the statistics of mortality, very reliable in earlier old age, rapidly turn int...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 6, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Assessing the Brains of Supercentenarians
Supercentenarians, people who have passed 110 years of age, are very rare. Accordingly, the sort of information on their physiology that can only be obtained through autopsy or donation of the body to science is similarly thin on the ground. It has been some years now, for example, since the evidence was first gathered to show that most supercentenarians are probably killed by transthyretin amyloidosis, something that has a smaller but significant contribution to heart disease in earlier old age. Here, researchers assess the postmortem state of the brains of four supercentenarians, an exercise that well demonstrates that t...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 28, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, September 19th 2016
In conclusion, we found that IS status was associated with a significant increase in Hannum DNA methylation, likely as a consequence of the accumulation of cardiovascular risk factors, and near signification with Horvath method. Patients with IS were biologically older than controls, a difference that was more obvious in young stroke. This could open up the possibility of useful new biomarker of stroke risk.
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A Profile of Kelsey Moody and Ichor Therapeutics
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2016/09/a-profile-of-kelsey-moody (Source: Fight Aging!)
Source: Fight Aging! - September 18, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 159
Just when you thought your brain could unwind on a Friday, you realise that it would rather be challenged with some good old fashioned medical trivia FFFF…introducing Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 159
Question 1
What is Metamorphopsia?
+ Reveal the Funtabulous Answer
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Metamorphopsia is a type of distorted vision in which a grid of straight lines appears wavy and parts of the grid may appear blank. People with this condition often first notice this when looking at mini-blinds in their home.
It is associated wit...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - September 16, 2016 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Neil Long Tags: Frivolous Friday Five amyloidosis Ashmans beats Ashmans phenomenon crying Hofstadter's law Metamorphopsia periorbital purpura Source Type: blogs
A Visual Introduction to SENS Rejuvenation Research
The SENS Research Foundation has assembled a set of narrated cellular biochemistry animations that serve as an introduction to the various distinct projects that make up the field of rejuvenation biotechnology. The videos outline the forms of cell and tissue damage that are the root cause of aging and age-related disease, as well as the classes of therapy that could, once constructed, either repair that damage or bypass it entirely. Since aging is exactly an accumulation of damage and the consequences of that damage, repair of the damage is the basis for rejuvenation, the reversal and prevention of degenerative aging and a...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 15, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Activism, Advocacy and Education Source Type: blogs
Alzheimer's Disease has the Look of a Condition Built of Multiple Causes
As a companion piece to the news of amyloid clearance in Alzheimer's patients from earlier this week, in which the outcome was not enough of an improvement to suggest that amyloid accumulation is the only issue, this article looks at a range of recent evidence for Alzheimer's disease to be a condition with multiple significant causes, some of which may be fairly independent of one another.
When pursuing an elusive beast, hunters look for the traces it leaves behind as clues to its whereabouts. Geneticists are employing a similar method to hunt variants linked to Alzheimer's disease (AD), with changes in the brain ...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 2, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
A Scanning Approach to Detect Transthyretin Amyloid Buildup in the Heart
In this study, the researchers examined the diagnostic accuracy of the Tc 99m PYP test for ATTR-CA in a retrospective study of 179 amyloidosis patients (121 with ATTR and 50 with other types). The researchers found that the imaging test was able to correctly identify ATTR in 91 percent of those diagnosed with the disease, and was able to rule out ATTR-CA in 92 percent of those with other forms of amyloidosis or no amyloidosis.
Link: http://newsroom.cumc.columbia.edu/blog/2016/08/24/amyloid-related-heart-failure-now-detectable-with-imaging-test/ (Source: Fight Aging!)
Source: Fight Aging! - August 25, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, August 8th 2016
In conclusion, spermidine inhibits lipid accumulation and necrotic core formation through stimulation of cholesterol efflux, albeit without changing plaque size or cellular composition. These effects, which are driven by autophagy in VSMCs, support the general idea that autophagy induction is potentially useful to prevent vascular disease.
Intestinal Autophagy Important in Calorie Restriction and Longevity in Nematodes
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2016/08/intestinal-autophagy-important-in-calorie-restriction-and-longevity-in-nematodes/
Based on the evidence accumulated from many years of studies of...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 7, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
The Next Five Years will be a Critical Time for the Development of Rejuvenation Biotechnology after the SENS Model of Damage Repair
Tempus fugit. I'm just about old enough to remember a time in which 2020 was the distant future of science fiction novels, too far away to be thinking about in concrete terms, a foreign and fantastical land in which anything might happen. Several anythings did in fact happen, such as the internet, and the ongoing revolution in biotechnology that has transformed the laboratory world but leaks into clinics only all too slowly. Here we are, however, close enough to be making plans and figuring out what we expect to be doing when the the third decade of the 21st century gets underway. The fantastical becomes the mundane. We do...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 1, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Activism, Advocacy and Education Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, August 1st 2016
Fight Aging! provides a weekly digest of news and commentary for thousands of subscribers interested in the latest longevity science: progress towards the medical control of aging in order to prevent age-related frailty, suffering, and disease, as well as improvements in the present understanding of what works and what doesn't work when it comes to extending healthy life. Expect to see summaries of recent advances in medical research, news from the scientific community, advocacy and fundraising initiatives to help speed work on the repair and reversal of aging, links to online resources, and much more.
This content is...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 31, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
A Few of the More Interesting of Recent Alzheimer's Research Results
A large fraction of the public funding devoted to aging research goes towards Alzheimer's disease, a very broad set of initiatives that dovetail with other large investments in mapping and understanding the biochemistry of the brain. This is a diverse area of study, since it involves figuring out how a fair-sized slice of the brain actually works at the detail level in order to understand how it becomes broken in this particular case. This means that a great many papers and research results flow past on a weekly basis. Not all of them are useful; institutions of public funding always turn into jobs programs over time, and ...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 27, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
